Uneven ceiling oil paint

Redoing our kitchen, just had most of the walls replaced with new drywall, taped and sanded. Then our painter used an oil-based primer on the walls and ceiling, and finally painted the ceiling. (We're trying to get as much painting out of the way before installing the cabinets.) It's a kitchen, so we were going for a smooth finish (color is an off white.)

The ceiling looks awful. From some angles it looks fine, but from others it looks totally uneven. At first, I thought I was seeing the sun reflected onto four patches on the ceiling; the finish looks that different from the wrong angle. The painter says it's because of a bad sanding job. Only the ceiling is painted so far, but he says to expect it to be just as bad on the walls.

Is there any way to fix this? Right now, we're thinking we'll texture everything, kitchen or not. I really don't want to deal with that oil primer any more, and I'm not even sure it'd do any good to layer on (and sand) half a dozen coats.

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Uneven ceiling oil paint

ASAP, get a "real" painter.
I can see no good reason to be using an oil based primer on new drywall and if he, she says it is a poor sanding job, why did they not fix it before priming? Poor sanding job sounds like poor paint job to me

Uneven ceiling oil paint

Uneven ceiling oil paint

what kind of paint was used on the ceiling after priming with the oil primer? Was an oil paint used? If an oil paint was used as your final coat, you can bet it has some sheen to it. If the ceiling paint had any sheen to it, that could certainly make the ceiling look worse than it is. Before texturing or going crazy sanding you could try painting with Ben Moore's ULTRA FLAT ceiling paint (508 line). This will help "hide" some of those imperfections and will eliminate the variation in apperance caused by higher sheen levels. This paint works espeically well if you have a ceiling with different angles in it which tend to reflect light and shadow even more. Keep in mind if an oil based topcoat was used, you will have to prime again before switching to this waterbased product - but you can use a number of latex primers to do this - namely fresh start or 1-2-3, etc...

Uneven ceiling oil paint

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisn

ASAP, get a "real" painter.
I can see no good reason to be using an oil based primer on new drywall and if he, she says it is a poor sanding job, why did they not fix it before priming? Poor sanding job sounds like poor paint job to me

I 2nd that, h the painter should have nown it was a bad sanding job from the start and mentioned it to your and I don't know any Painting Company that uses oil base primer on new drywall anymore. At this point if it is bad sanding you can't re-sand, as the primer has sealed the surface, alternitives are to skim coat the bad spots or use a high build primer over top of what's there.